I meant “leaders” or “team leads”. It’s lingo I forget won’t be clear outside work =P

Yes, I’m in a senior role so I’ve been part of the hiring process for companies I’ve been at for the past 5 years, give or take. In my experience yes, there’s generally a layer of separation. I can’t filter through dozens of initial applicants, as many have the wrong skill set for the role, salary expectations don’t match, yada yada. And to even reject a candidate there’s some time consuming paperwork. If you get to me or someone in my team, an HR agency or business person has cleared you for the very basics already. But I still need to determine if you’d be a good fit for the team (hence the behavioral stuff), as well as good enough technically for the role.

I can’t speak for other fields, but in tech there’s a significant chance you’re being interviewed by the very same people / team you’ll work with, once you get past the initial HR screening. So I’m 100% interested in knowing if you’d fit in. Some companies have behavioral stuff assessed exclusively by HR, during screening. Some mix things up (like mine - starting tech interviews with “lighter” personality questions can be an ice breaker).

As all things in life, sometimes there are exceptions though. Maybe I just came across your profile on LinkedIn and reached out. In that case there’d be no initial screening and we’d skip ahead.